masterminis.net - where we learn to be a better painter!

Thursday, June 27, 2013

Our friends at Taban Miniatures are currently running a kickstarter campaign for their new board game EDEN - Escape. After seeing the beautiful miniatures, I just backed the project myself - at 99$ and all the stuff that is already unlocked, I think it's an absolute steal :D

And the next stretchgoals are within reach - we only need to stretch a liiiittle more ;)

Let's Mohand and Mel explain to you (*spoiler* in a very cute French accent, if I may add), what they have done:

This game seems to have BOTH things: Awesome gameplay AND beautiful miniatures! My personal favorite is Alice from the 'Resistance set':

Unlike many other kickstarters from the 'Big Companies', it won't be over a year before you get your game - it is scheduled to be shipped in October 2013!

Enough time for you to paint it and play with it under the Christmas tree! :D

Wednesday, June 26, 2013

I apologize in advance for taking valuable miniature related space with this post, but I just had to share this with you! If anything, take this as a sign of the seriousness and professionalism that we display in our daily work.

Akopalüze! Real quick for you guys - more and more Apocalypse 2.0 pics flood the interwebs. We'll stay on the ball as much as we can ;)

I am seriously considering to go to my local GW this Saturday. For safety reasons I might leave my wallet at home :D So much nice stuff to buy... I LOVE the Necron Tesseract Vault!!See here for more pics (yesterday's post)

A couple of forums, FB pages, Reddit and our secret chinese information-service Baidu have posted leaked pictures of some of the new Apocalypse "2.0" releases, Games Workshop will announce next week.

So far, it's mostly Ultramarines characters that we can see - and I really like them a lot. The Necron Monolith Thingies look awesome and I am more than excited about what's more to come. With the recent trend of GW going for huge models and flyers my anticipation level is over 9000!

That Lord Execution will land in my army for sure! And the Master of Relics! And the Master of Marches! Nice! :)

You can read more in next Saturday's White Dwarf. Also, all GW stores are running a big event on Saturday - so you might wanna hit your local store!

We are getting excited as we expect our delivery of the finished DVDs by next week. We will start shipping out as soon as we got them - and we are pretty sure you will like what you will get ;)

Server is back! Kill the server!

Shoot 'dat Server!

After another downtime of our server we are finally back! Masterminis.net's forwarding server was down, even though the blog at masterminis.blogspot.com went on. But we're sick and tired of our server issues, so we'll say Good-Bye to our Internet service provider 1&1! We had a lot of issues with these guys and in order to not have these in the future anymore, we will change providers. About time ;)

During the downtime, naturally, visitor numbers to the site plummeted. Since there were a handful of really nice reports during this time, I will post the most important links here for your convenience.

Thursday, June 20, 2013

First leaked picture of our beautifulSupporter T-Shirt!(Image by LittleGreenDwarf)

We are closing in on shipping our first ever Paintingbuddha.com DVD Set!

Today we sent our mail chimp out with emails to all of you who have pre-ordered the Season 1 DVD Set. We do this with a few things in mind:

for those of you that purchased the Supporter Box, we need to know your T-Shirt size for your free T-Shirt! You can set this by following the links in the email.

for everyone we would like to verify your address - just in case you moved since you ordered.

all supporters that ordered before March 31st will receive a totally awesome gift from us ;)

If you do not change your settings, we will use the address as provided with the order and send you an 'L' sized t-shirt.

To-Do List

Next week we will bring our store at www.paintingbuddha.com up to speed - graphics and content for our product have been seriously neglected!

We are also working on a 'real' website which will reside at the same address. It will start as a very simple site with blogs, event management and some other nifty stuff, but bigger and better functionality will be added throughoutt the year.

More on our current developments in the next couple of days!

Also, there will be ONE and only ONE T-Shirt that we will give away in the next couple of days - the only non-supporter T-Shirt in existance. Worth millions out of 10 points for style!

Have a great sunny day and a cool and refreshing drink of your choice!

If you missed Part 1 of the coverage of this epic event, you can read up about it here. Make sure to have a look at the many beautiful photos from visitors and participants of the event at the end of the part 1 report.

This report focuses on some 'behind the scenes' information about this year's Spring Angel. I recommend you read the whole thing! Spoiler: Alternative world view inside!

The best thing about miniature related events

People from all over the world meetand share their passion.

Those of you who know me, know that I painted less finished 'showcase' miniatures than I spent years in the hobby. That is mostly due to the fact that I had a pretty busy job for most of my life.

The few miniatures that I entered in competitions were rather successful, but I am by no means an 'accomplished' painter, more a 'lucky' one :D

But for some 21+ years I have been visiting on average 5-6 miniature events a year. Competitions, workshops, painter meetings and all the good stuff. ^^

That is what is most important for me and my hobby: Meeting awesome people from all over the world that are as crazy about miniatures as I am - like I did last weekend in Moscow.

Starting a miniature company 'for the greater good'

It is this passion about miniature painting and gaming and the people that pursue these hobbies that made me start our little company '学・Manabu' (Japanese for 'Learning'). We don't aim for big profits - all we want to do is create awesome stuff for the community - and encourage non-painters to join our growing movement.

Even though companies like Google claim to 'not be evil', we kinda felt 'unique' with our approach of using our profits to give back to the community we love and to donate a big portion of our profits to charity.

So what does all of that have to do with the Spring Angel?

48 drawers and 6 large cabinets FULL of every WHFB armyyou can dream of. All beautifullypainted by well-known painters!

In short: we are not alone!

Let me tell you about the Pavlovs...

Katy & Sergey Pavlov, owners of The Russian Alternative and organizers of the Spring Angel competition can safely be described as very successful Russian business people. I always thought that my passion for the hobby is somewhat extreme, but compared to Katy and Sergey... wow!

Sergey has the biggest private collection of masterclass miniatures that I have ever seen. Just imagine five large display cases full of miniatures painted by Yellow One, Derwish, Ben Komets, Matt Cexwish, River, Ringil, Lynx, Nakatan, Volomir... Do I need to go on?

Well, I will go on anyways, for I am not done yet :D

Sergey, also a passionate WHFB player, has the biggest collection of painted WH armies that I have ever seen. Not just 'three colors up' - but all beautiful works commissioned from army painters all over the world.

The Pavlovs have invested - and continue to invest - a small fortune (or rather a large fortune) in works from accomplished painters everywhere. But their support of painters and their hobby does not end there.

Close your eyes. No, wait... that won't work,... Imagine that you close your eyes.

After-Show Dinner with helpers & artists.

Now imagine a really large, globally operating miniature company (let's call them Wayne's Gurkenshop (WG) for trade-mark reasons and fear of the Inquisition) that runs community events for painters and gamers.

Let's say they rent an expensive, top-class venue for the show. There is no entrance fee. On top of that you are invited to a free breakfast buffet and a free lunch buffet as a special 'Thank you' just for showing up. You are further welcome to join free masterclasses held by some of the world's best painters. And if you helped a little with the event - or you are just lucky, like me, you even get invited to an after-show-dinner with a bunch of miniature crazy people.

Now imagine that you open your eyes again.

We all know that our imaginary company WG doesn't do that. No-one does. Except for The Russian Alternative - and the Pavlovs. Because they can - and because they love the hobby.

I always thought that the 'Alternative' in the company name referred to being an inexpensive, high quality alternative to, let's say, our imaginary friends at WG, maybe even something to challenge WG's dominance of the market.

I was absolutely wrong.

In my very long discussions with Katy and Sergey I learned what the 'alternative' in their company name truly means.

Katy explained, that in her vision, the whole gaming and painting community is a serious alternative to young people who otherwise would engage in less productive hobbies (such as drinking themselves senseless every weekend or so). We both shared the opinion that painting miniatures changes the way people of all age-groups see and experience the world.

When I said that I sincerely believe the world would be a much better place if every man, woman and child would at least paint a handful of miniatures, Katy's eyes lit up.

Sergey: There's never enough miniatures!

We both argue that an investment in the miniature painting community is an investment in the future. Of course, we won't get rich doing it! It is not for us - it's for the community.

THAT is what "The Alternative" is.

Late at night (or rather early in the morning) Sergey put this in much more earthly terms: "You know, it's either organizing an event like the Spring Angel for the people or buying a big new motor-bike." By now you should understand, that the bike is not even close to being an Alternative when it comes to the Pavlovs.

An idea that I just might steal (if I ever get the chance) ;)

I know how you must feel - reading passage over passage about how nice certain people are, can sometimes be too much. But bear with me just a few more lines, because what Katy told me next gave me goose-bumps.

Let me tell you real briefly about "The Union Club". I encourage you to click that link and read what Katy wrote about their idea behind this club.

In short: Sergey and Katy rent a spacious 160m2 room in one of the largest exhibition centers in Moscow. Every Saturday from 9am to 6pm gamers and painters can go to the club and play and paint for free. 20 gaming tables accommodate 40 players at a time.

Top this off with full-day painting classes by Reka Nadezhda (aka "River"; btw. Reka (река) means 'River' in Russian) or Kirill Kanaev ("Yellow One") and you got an awesome place to go to on weekends.

Of course, you already expected that all of this is absolutely FREE.

A big "Thank You".

Last weekend's Spring Angel was the most memorable miniature painting event that I ever had the pleasure to be a part of.

A very big "thank you" and a ton of RESPECT goes out to Katy and Sergey, two awesome people that do so much for the community.

And if you don't believe me, read what Volomir has to say, that young, charming, good-looking, funny and talented bastard :D

SUMMER ANGEL 2014 - We will be there! We hope to see you there, too!

Late night after-after-show party in Katy's and Sergey's Hobby Room. Rafa has no drink :D Thanks to JMPN for taking this picture!

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

After a full day working on databases for the better good of our DVD Season 1 supporters I feel like giving something away... Wait,... wasn't there some sort of awesome Jeremie Bonamant Teboul Workshop in Berlin that I wanted to give away today? That's right!

But first things first... ;)

DVD Update 1 - Email on Thursday

Awww, now that is what I call a SNEAK PEEKBen only reveals little of the Paintingbuddha Supporter T-Shirt ;)

BTW: In this picture Jose asks him, where he can get one for himself!

(I think)

On Thursday Ben will be back from Moscow/St. Petersburg and we will send out an email to all of you who have pre-ordered either the Supporter Box or the Budget Box of our Season 1 DVD "Target Identfied".

First we will ask you to confirm your address (I already know of two guys who have moved recently ).

And due to girlfriend pressure, we will probably have to custom make some girlie-shirts, too! ^^ All shirts are high-quality, hand-made, fair trade, low CO2 footprint and so on...

Again, this email will be sent out some time on Thursday.

DVD Update 2 - Li'l Present for you

As soon as we got your address verified, we will also send out a very special thank you to ALL of you who have ordered either the supporter box or the budget box before March 31st - as promised! Oh, a surprise! Yay! I am absolutely sure you will like it ;)

We currently are still on course for shipping out all orders in the first week of July - we are just waiting on a few palettes of DVDs to be delivered ^^.

And now: The winner of the JBT Workshop!

Unfortunately, SkelettetS could not make it, but that gave a second chance to 'only' 10 of you. I'd call that a pretty good chance to win a workshop with Crystal Brush winner Jeremie Bonamant Teboul worth 100€!

And I am happy to announce that the random farie of random.org randomly picked Madhatter Spaulding as the lucky winner! Congrats! Contact me on Facebook if you need any additional information, dude :)

Monday, June 17, 2013

The Painting Buddha goes EastLong time followers of this blog know that we travel to and report from as many miniature related events as we can possibly afford. In the last 20 years I have probably visited at least 42+ miniature competitions - all over the globe. I think this is important to keep in mind as this will put this report into perspective. When it comes to miniature painting competitions, I think I have a good idea of what I am talking about ;)So fasten your seat belt, put your tray up - we are ready for take-off!Spring Angel 2013 - Moscow

Some of the names you may not know yet, but should definitely keep an eye out for are: "Wild Panties" (who would not keep an eye out for those!), "4K" and "Gruumsh", among others.

Traveling to Moscow

Hotel Salyut, MoscowLocation of the Spring Angel 2013

Even though Matt had successfully gotten us our Visas ahead of time (which was totally easy, btw), for me, going to Moscow was a last-minute decision. But since we had just finished our work on our Season 1 DVD the weekend before, I chose to indulge myself by going to Moscow.I had been to Moscow before - that was in 1990, the time of 'Glasnost' and 'Perestroika' had just begun. It was -30 degrees back then, St. Petersburg was still Leningrad and everything looked the way one would have expected the former Soviet Union to look like. So for me it was absolutely mind-boggling to see what has become of Moscow. In short: WOW. A beautiful airport, 5-lane highways (which are as congested as in LA in rush hour), advertisement signs like in the US on either side of the road, IKEA, giant shopping malls (more about that later) and everything else that one would expect if one would go to the US, for example. The one-hour trip to the hotel by taxi (which cost only around 60€) was an eye-opener to me.

乾杯！

Sunshine, blue skies and temperatures of 24 degrees (centigrade!) and the fact that the rumor about the beauty of Russian women is absolutely true put a big, big smile on the face of one very happy Galactic President. The Hotel Salyut is a pretty large hotel, around 30+ years old, but it was very clean, had some nice amenities, three bars, a pool-table club and a total of, I believe six or seven restaurants. And since I now was in Russia I decided to end the first day with some homemade sino-russian Japanese Sushi and a few bottles of Asahi super-dry... LOLWUT? Oh well, I miss Japan, I admit it. The food was awesome and very, very cheap! Nomnomnomnomnom :D Event Day

The Russian Alternative welcomes its guests

We all know events where - let's say - you pay 50€ entrance fee just to get in and then you get nothing in return - except maybe for the chance to buy miniatures at catalog prices...Not so at the Spring Angel. Entrance was free. Then you get invited to a free breakfast buffet in a beautiful café. And right when you are exhausted from admiring all the masterpieces in the showroom you get invited to an awesome lunch buffet - awesome food and drinks for everyone.It suffices to say that for all of the miniature events that I have attended this is completely and utterly unheard off. All courtesy of the Russian Alternative!

Breakfast at Tiffany's - only better.

During breakfast I joined Ben, Volomir, JMPN, Matt and his girlfriend for a quick cup of coffee but we quickly mingled with some of our new Russian friends. Many of them I already knew from Facebook - but we had never met in person before. Some others I knew from Coolminiornot or their blogs. In many cases it felt like talking to an old friend you just hadn't seen for a very long time. It was quite awesome!

No translating bablefishes were needed nor harmed during the event.

Communication in English worked just fine for the most part - and where it failed, the good-old 'talking with hands and feet' approach worked as designed. Sometimes some of the Russian visitors volunteered to step in as a translator. It was so much fun to finally meet all the people whose work I follow for years and years. Everyone was just absolutely nice and we had some very cool and long discussions about Life, the Universe and Everything... and miniature painting, of course! After all, that is what our Universe is all about ;) The Champions League of Painting Competitions

The entries were closely studied by a very knowledgable audience

I chose that title very carefully - and I don't think it's an overstatement. Let me explain. Oftentimes when talking about painting competitions, people talk about how high or low the 'painting standard' was.

"Yellow One" Kyril Kanaev checks out the strong competition

Let me give you an example. The Coolminiornot Crystal Brush 2013 had about 6 or 7 miniatures out of I believe 230 that I would have given a chance of winning the event. If you have voted through all of the miniatures like me, I am sure you will agree. Even if the winner walks home with 10.000$, I am afraid to say that the overall painting standard of the Crystal Brush was very low. If you do the math, it's about 3% of all entries which would be considered top-entries. At the typical Games Day, I would say that the standard is much higher than that and maybe something like 10-15% of all entries are top-entries (depending on venue and category of course). Again, this is not a scientific claim, just a very basic and probably rather subjective observation.

A table full of trophies waited for the deserving winners.

As you will see in the many gallery links later, for the Spring Angel I would put the percentage of top entries close to 50%, maybe even higher. Some of the entries that walked home without a trophy would surely win in many other international events. The Jury had a really tough time deciding which of the awesome entries should win and why. I hear that only events like Mont San Salvino (which I will attend for the first time this year) or the World Expo (next one in 2014) may be of a similar caliber. We will find out for you, promised ;)

But wait, that's not all!A beautiful city, a classy location, awesome people, mindblowing miniatures and free food are not enough for you? You need more? YOU are a TOUGH COOKIE! How about cash prizes of up to 700€ for the three first places of EACH category. No? Still not enough? OK. Then I have to bring out the big guns... FREE Masterclasses, maybe?

A not well hidden camera interrupted the secretjury deliberations between Ben and Matt.

Up to about 100 visitors enjoyed the large screen projections of the free classes in their comfy cinema chairs. The really nice part was that everyone could ask questions, walk up to the table and have a look 'over the shoulder' of the artist and look at the finished pieces.

OK, in this case, the freehandswere not exactly hidden ;) (Lynx)

About the entered miniaturesI already mentioned the very high standard of the event. But there was another peculiarity to the pieces we saw. Sometimes, when you go to an event, you look at a miniature and say: Wow that is well done! At the Spring Angel, that happened all the time. But then you took a closer look and said: WOW there is even more to discover! Many of the miniatures had some very fine and subtle freehands all over the place. Russian artists have long been known for their fine freehands and their perfect execution. It has been an absolute pleasure to see these works of art. Unfortunately, I could only take pictures from the front of many miniatures - but the guys from Russian Alternative have organized a professional photographer so we can expect winner pictures from all sides very soon. Who I was missing at the eventSome of the artist's that I would have loved to see at the event were (not a complete list ^^): Bohun, Ana, Camelson, Crackpot, Picster, Jarhead, Nakatan, Karol Rudyk, Rusto, Arsies, Emuse, Goatman, Franciuus, Monkeyman7x, etc. etc.....

GUYS! Seriously! 2014 - Summer Angel! You simply MUST go! :) If you look at what the Spring Angel 2013 had to offer and compare it with ANY other competition, I think you will consider visiting the SUMMER ANGEL 2014! We will go for sure and we will also help you with information about travel and visas when the time has come - so stay tuned!

And the winner is......everyone who attended the event. OK, I know that sounds cheesy, but I really mean it. By now I guess you can kinda 'feel' my excitement about this event. The reason why I am even more excited about the Spring Angel and in particular about The Russian Alternative will be covered when I wrap up this event in Part 2 of this report (which will probably come out on Wednesday). In that report I will also show you the secret footage of the after-event party!But now, of course you want to see the miniatures and hear about the winners of the competition. Here a sneak peak of the Best of Show from Lynx. See his link below for more hi-res pictures of his awesomely mad ninja skillz!

This is just unreal. I mean real. I mean... You know what I mean... ^^Congratulations to Lynx for his Best of Show and his many other trophies!